A majority of Nobel Prize winners in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine and economics have been Americans, or Europeans working in American institutions.
For example, from 1901 to 1989 Americans won the chemistry prize 36 times.
Fifty-two the recipients in physics during the same time period were Americans.
In 1990 nine Americans won prizes in the sciences.
Some of the winners and their accomplishments follow.
In medicine Cesar Milstein for his discovery of monoclonal antibodies, Gerald Edelman, noted brain scientist, for his work in immunology, Richard Rogers and Phillip Sharpe won for gene research which advanced knowledge into cancer and hereditary diseases.
In physics, Georges Charpak won for his invention of the atom smasher, Steven Weinberger for his account of the origins of the universe, Murray Gell-Mann for work with fundamental units of matter, quarks and leptons, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer for invention of the Scanning Tunnelling Microscope which led to MRI imaging.
In chemistry George Olah for contributions to carbocation chemistry, Thomas Cech and Sidney Altman for their work on RNA.
Linus Pauling is noted as the only person to ever win two Nobel Prizes, the first for his work on chemical bonds.
He later won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Peace Prize.
Some prizes in economics have gone to Gary Becker for his work on discrimination and human capital theory, Robert Fogel and Douglass North for their work on causes of economic and institutional change, and John Harsanyi John Nash, and Reinhard Selten for Game Theory.
